By
Obododimma Oha
Humans are
called homo erectus, simply because
sometime in the distant past, in their evolution, they chose to start standing
erect. That standing erect must have been risky but a lot of fun to the humans
that first tried it. Previously, they were used to walking on all fours like
other animals and this enhanced blood flow to the brain and looking under the
trees or being more attentive to little things on the ground. Fitness experts
have added to this zoological knowledge by telling us that walking and all
movement of the limbs are good for us and that they help in the lubrication of
our body systems, pumping of blood from the heart, and fighting of disease.
These are indubitable, unless one wants to pay with one’s life by finding out
the hard way! But there are other pleasures of walking, which are ways of
bringing our realities more into this form of kinetics and kinesics.
My legs have
walked places, many places on earth, but are not the greatest johnny walkers in this kind of
motion. So, when I look at those legs, I sometimes want to offer a big ram to
them. They have really carried this meat around! They have really carried a
luggage around, from place to place. One has really put them into use, knowing,
too, that they have expiry. Recently, I saw a friend (who died days later)
being helped to walk by his children. It was a short distance but he could not
walk it unaided. I am sure there was a time he could fly like the wind; a time
of top youthfulness when he could run fast! There was a time when his legs were
his! But he was being helped to walk a short distance.
That
experience and the fact that he died later added to the understanding about
walking I was beginning to have. This is it: time is coming when that youth
that could fly like the wind would be helped to walk a short distance. For the
avoidance of doubts, time is coming when one would not need legs again. Legs and
walking would disappear or become strange. One would not need legs and all
human form again. Another form would take over. Maybe one is actually given
these legs to enjoy walking and running with them, to experience the pleasures of kinetics! It is part of the adventure, part of the fun! One is invited to watch those
legs moving back and forth. The future and the past of walking; the future and the past walking along! In the future, maybe in the next 100 years (let me
not shorten the time and frighten people), one would not have or need legs
again. Yes; another form would take over or one would start getting used to it.
Maybe one
would ascend into something higher, as the spiritual scientists tell us. Maybe
one can appear and disappear. Maybe one can pass through locked doors and peer
at the sleeping faces of those who have also traveled. But it is certain that a change
of state is taking place. It is even evident in the black hair turning grey. It
is evident in being helped to walk a short distance to and from one’s house.
Yet, it is
childish to start mourning over forms one would discard or to start worshiping
a form that is ephemeral. If there is anything that does not last forever, it
is human form. So, I put my dear father into the soil many years ago! So, my
own turn is coming! So, all my degrees and even my skin and my name would not be
mine! Terrible! But it is inevitable.
Walking is
really one of the pleasures granted to me and that may be why legs were given
to me in the first place. If I have to enjoy using those legs, it is not my
fault. Nature says that I should enjoy them before it is too late, before it
comes to alter things.
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